Social Media has become more and more visually appealing. It is no longer an option NOT to use visuals within your social media strategy. Sometimes, creating those visual components can be kind of stressful, especially if you are the non-designer type of entrepreneur. Another struggle with the visual element is cost. Many of my clients are the DIY type, just starting out, and can not afford always to hire a designer. In this article, I will share THREE of my favorite design tools to help you create beautiful graphics for your various social media platforms.

PicMonkey has a free and paid option. You have the ability to create a wide variety of customized social media visuals. I love the fact that you can resize images, create customized sized images, add frames, cutouts, delete backgrounds, add texts, use your own fonts, and so much more!

You can create custom graphics, add your own graphic elements, and even use your own fonts.

Canva is another design tool that has both a free and paid option. One of the great features with Canva is that there are pre-set templates for social media that you can use immediately. Another excellent feature of Canva (it's premium feature ~ Canva for Work) allows you to create and save branded templates. This function is approximately $9 a month.

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Canva saves all you work so you can always go back to something and edit it as often as you like. Other great features of Canva is the ability to purchase stock photography directly on their site, collaborate with others, and even create pdf documents. The other plus, for ios users, is the Canva app for iPad.

BeFunky is a great combination of Canva and PicMonkey. Just like Canva and PicMonkey, BeFunky has a paid and free option. Like Canva, it has preset templates you can use for your social media profiles. BeFunky allows you to edit photos, create collages, and design various graphics.

BeFunky Collage

One of the big things BeFunky has going for it is that it is both a web application and a mobile app. You can get BeFunky on Android and iOS.

I will never say that these tools are better than hiring a graphic designer, but they are fantastic for managing your social media. You can use these tools to create daily posts, Facebook Ads, blog post images, and more. I find each of these tools have their place in creating a social media strategy.